


i'm living in an age that calls darkness light

by theviolonist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-08 14:37:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/444248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A night among hothouse flowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm living in an age that calls darkness light

**Author's Note:**

> Written for dollsome's femslash meme (here http://dollsome.livejournal.com/1794393 on LJ).

This night is a hot night, and those flowers are the wrong kind, big and blooming with blushing petals, staining the night red. It's too reminiscent of the war to be beautiful, but it probably would have been before, the way violence used to be beautiful until it was their skins the bruises marred and their lovers death took. 

"So," Ginny says, looking up at Luna, who's still walking among the flowers, looking around her, "you came."

"Of course I came," Luna says airily, brushing her fingertips to a flower's leaves, and Ginny wants to reach out and steady her, to make sure she doesn't leave, but she doesn't. Luna turns towards her, her eyes blue like the ice from the other side of the world. "Did you think I wouldn't?"

Ginny shrugs. "I don't know." The war made her doubt everything. 

"We missed you at the wedding, you know," she adds. "There was cake and everything. It was nice."

Luna nods distractedly. "Cake attracts moon frogs," she says. 

Ginny should know how to respond to that by now, but she doesn't. "Oh."

"It's too soon for a wedding, anyway," Luna adds, quieter, lower; and if Ginny weren't listening, the way she does every time Luna is near, she probably wouldn't have heard it. 

This she can understand - that the war is still too close, that there are too many dead friends resting underneath their feet, too much blood shed, to laugh and dance and pretend to be happy. But she's fiercely loyal, always has been, and it's her brother. It's as simple as that, really (except when it isn't). 

"You should sit down," Ginny says. Her lungs are high in her throat, and she feels like she's going to throw up if Luna doesn't stop moving. 

Luna looks over to her, one eyebrow cocked, but she sits anyway, folding her knees like she's doing Ginny a favor. 

"So," Ginny starts, but she doesn't know what to say, so instead she picks at the ground and lets the dirt smudge on her fingers. Her jeans will be dirty too, she thinks. 

"You should kiss me now," Luna says, her fingers laced in her lap. The moonlight shines behind her and makes her glow, cold and delicate. Ginny hadn't noticed the print of her dress. Flowers. Daffodils. 

"Yeah, okay," she says, and leans in. Luna's sigh looks like a smile, or maybe it's the other way around. 

+

"I miss the war," Luna says when they're lying down, after, her breasts heaving a little when she talks. 

Ginny startles. Every time someone mentions the war it's like an electroshock. "Okay," she says, because she can't say she understands. She doesn't. She doesn't understand Luna, never has. 

Luna rolls on her side to face her. Her nipples shine pink like timid gems. "It's okay if you don't understand," she says, and bends to pepper a flurry of kisses on Ginny's stomach. 

"Is it really?" Ginny asks, and bites down on a gasp when Luna's cool lips brush over hers.

Luna's face comes up from between her legs, her chin a little shiny. She smiles gently. "No," she says, and shrugs, the movement rolling smoothly on her shoulders. "But I'm used to it."

Ginny wonders what crushing sadness would feel like, but she can't remember, so she closes her eyes. _Enjoy_ , she tells herself, and does just that. 

+

It's too late to be lying down in a hothouse with your improvised lover, the tiny rocks drawing small scars on your back. 

"Do you want to go?" Ginny asks. She feels exposed, but it's not because of her nakedness as much as it is from Luna's gaze on her legs and the soft moon shining her skin, where neck meets shoulder. 

"I would be gone if I did," Luna says softly, brushing the edge of Ginny's jaw with a cautious fingertip, as though she were trying to soothe an untamed beast. Ginny feels like the world is in reverse. "Calm down."

Ginny doesn't. She probably never will, or at least not for a long time; it'll take years for the jumpiness to untangle from her limbs, for her to be lazy again, to stop being at war. 

Luna laughs a little, the corner of her mouth quirking. She kisses Ginny. Her darting tongue tastes of salt. 

"Do you like living near the sea?" Ginny asks. 

Luna hums a little absently. "I do. I'd missed it."

As far as Ginny knows, Luna has always lived on the mainland with her father, but there are a lot of things Ginny doesn't know about Luna. 

Luna looks at her, the cold blue softer in the paling night. "There is a lot you know, too," she says, and Ginny has to kiss her for that, so she locks her arms behind her neck and holds her close, skin to skin in the damp heat. 

+

Now Luna is sitting cross-legged, unashamed and white, her long blond hair falling like waves over the curve of her spine. She let it grow after the war - it touches the small of her back, riding her vertebrae like a light-soaked sea. She's playing with a pebble. 

"It's the season of hurricanes in America, you know," she says. 

Ginny didn't know. "Do you wish we had hurricanes here?" she asks. 

Luna considers it for a few seconds, her head tilted to the side. "Maybe," she says eventually. "Maybe then we wouldn't miss the war so much."

"It isn't the same thing," Ginny says. The war always forces words out of her when it doesn't make her mute. 

"No," Luna agrees, and she looks at Ginny, her eyes shining and endless. "Nothing is the same as the war."

There's a beat of silence that clicks like a metronome in Ginny's mind. 

"I'm going to cut my hair," Luna says, soft and intent. 

"Oh?" Ginny asks, a little weakly. 

"Yes," Luna answers, and then: "It'll be like the end of a love story."

She looks at Luna, and reaches a hand to circle Ginny's wrist with her fingers, nails grazing against Ginny's pulse. Maybe it's her idea of an apology, Ginny thinks. 

She sneaks a glance at Luna under her lashes and wonders what she'll look like with short hair. 

+

They part before the sky gets too yellow, because Luna only likes yellow on dresses and lemons. ("Dawn isn't my favorite season," she said to Ginny once, quietly and like a confidence, just before she slid her fingers into Ginny and made her moan.)

"Goodbye," Ginny says. She's never been one for tears. 

Luna kisses her, distractedly. It leaves a sharp tang of newborn nostalgia on Ginny's lips; she wants to wipe it from her mouth with her sleeve, but she doesn't. It can wait. 

"Did you know," Luna says, "that the French have two words for goodbye? One if they're going to see each other again, and one if it's forever."

Ginny wants to say _everybody knows that_. "Yes," she says instead. 

Luna hums, low and calm. "Well then," she says, and stuffs her dirty, nail-bitten hands in her dress pockets, "au revoir."

She smiles. Her eyes are another blue still, ocean with sprinkles of gold. She shrugs. "Or maybe adieu," she adds. 

Ginny watches her walk up the path that leads to her house until the pale night swallows her. Then she picks up her bag, hooks the strap on her shoulder and leaves without a second glance for the red, blooming flowers.


End file.
